A Grade Six Guide
by Altaria Volante
Summary: Thirteen year old Rodney McKay can't seem to do anything right in his parents' eyes. But a dare from a classmate helps him prove himself... to himself, at least.


A/N: Written long previous to 'McKay & Mrs. Miller', so this does follow what was found out about Rodney in that ep. I thought about editing, but I like it the way it was originally written, so originally written it stays :)

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**McKay:** "I built an atomic bomb for my grade six science fair exhibit."

**Ford:** "They let you do that up in Canada?"

**McKay:** "It wasn't a working model. Still, I was questioned for six hours by the CIA, who believed I was part of a secret preteen organization, actually, it led to my first job--"

_-- 1x08 'The Underground'_

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Rodney McKay was a failure in a family of success, at least that's what his parents told him at least twice a day. At thirteen years old, he should have already found what he was good at and started working at it… again, something his parents told him multiple times a day. Why couldn't he 'be more like Jeannie?' they'd bemoan as they dismissed him yet again. At three years his senior, Jeannie had already proven herself a talented musician like her mother, focusing on the piano where their mother played the clarinet for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Rodney was eight years old when he sat through Jeannie's performance of Rachmaninoff, but his attention wasn't on Jeannie. He watched as his parents hung on every note she played, smiling proudly as his father nudged the man to his left and whispered, "that's my daughter." It even elicited a joyful tear or two from his mother.

That must be what they want, Rodney thought. I'll play the piano.

Surely it couldn't turn out as poorly as his previous attempt to not 'shame his poor parents by his very existence' – a favorite phrase of his father's Rodney had overheard on more than one occasion. His father was an assistant coach for the Maple Leafs and had decided that, at five years old, Rodney was going to play hockey just like his father. It wasn't that Rodney was bad at hockey; in fact he was perfectly average. His father decided to push him into a string of strenuous one-on-one practices with the elder McKay as coach, because at seven Rodney should prove himself exceptional at something.

That something was not hockey. At least, not to his father's standards.

And so at eight, Rodney decided that something was the piano. Jeannie could play and it made his mother proud. If he couldn't make his father proud, maybe he could make his mother proud. He announced his grand plans to his mother that night at bedtime.

She laughed. Not an 'oh my darling boy' laugh that most mothers give when their children declare their wild and spontaneous intentions, but a harsh, cutting laugh. "Music is beautiful," she said, patting him on the head. "What makes you think you're beautiful like Jeannie?"

Rodney didn't have an answer, and his mother shook her head in disbelief… but she agreed to find him a teacher on the off chance that he'd prove talented at 'something that actually mattered'.

The one place Rodney had excelled in didn't even register with his parents, who had spent a growing number of evenings arguing. Academics held little importance in the McKay house. Neither his mother or father, or Jeannie for that matter, had been a strong student and that had little bearing on their future success. They took this experience and decided that one couldn't depend on being smart, but on being talented. Rodney knew he was smart, but he also knew that that wasn't enough. He'd been taught that early on. One of his clearest memories was sitting with his kindergarten teacher while his parents insisted that he be held back because of his lack of "social skills". Mrs. Ruark had tried to convince the McKays that yes, he was not the most sociable of children, but he was smart enough to go on, even a year ahead if they wanted to challenge him. The McKays would hear nothing of it, and the three of them decided to keep Rodney back yet another year.

He's stopped showing his parents his high marks by grade six, focusing those conversations on his progress on the piano. After five years of lessons, he'd become quite good. But again, not good enough. His teacher pulled his mother aside after a lesson in January, saying that he didn't have the passion for the art, so he would never have the talent for the art.

The arguing was louder that night.

Rodney slumped over in his chair, still reeling over the stinging remarks from his piano teacher. Well, ex-piano teacher. At the discovery that he'd never be the prodigy that Jeannie, stupid perfect Jeannie, was, his mother had bluntly told Rodney he should just give up if he wasn't going to be great. No point in wasting time on something he didn't excel at.

"Rodney! Were you even listening?"

Rodney pulled his head up from its resting position on his desk at the sound of Beth Allen admonishing him from the front. "Lizzy, you were boring, so I decided to take a nap," he mumbled lazily.

"Why do you even come to Algebra Club if you're just going to nap?" Beth grumbled. "And don't call me Lizzy!"

Rodney shrugged. "You needed a fifth person for the competition and unlike most of the idiots in our grade, I can actually add."

"You're doing us a favor?" Beth laughed incredulously before being cut off.

"Be nice, Beth. We need to talk about the science fair and what the club wants to make for it." April Bingham waved Beth out of her snit and smiled at Rodney. "Do you have any ideas?"

"Something big," Rodney replied, opening up his science text book and flipping through for ideas. "Gotta be something big."

"Why don't we build a working volcano?" Martin Hutchins chirped from a neighboring desk.

Rodney rolled his eyes. "What are we, in grade four?" he grumbled. "Everyone can build a volcano!"

"But we could make it with real rocks," Martin tried.

"I say we power a light bulb with a potato," Beth jumped in. "My older sister Mary won the science fair all three years with her potato model. It's a winner."

"We can do something bigger than a stupid potato," Rodney mumbled as he flipped through his book. "It's a stupid idea."

"What did you just say?" Beth snapped.

"I said," Rodney replied, emphasizing each word, "that is was a stupid idea."

"Well if it's such a stupid idea then why don't you go do your own project. A big project that's not going to win, because my potato power is going to win!" Beth added caustically.

"Fine!" Rodney jumped out of his seat. "I bet I can make something a hundred times better than your stupid potato light!"

"Fine!" Beth snatched Rodney's book from his desk and started flipping through it. "I bet you can't make something I pick out!"

"Can too!" Rodney bit back, his face growing redder. Every day it was you can't, you can't, you can't…

"Bet you can't!" Beth tossed down the book and pointed to a large, black and white photograph. "Bet you can't make that. You can't can you? Bet you can't!"

Rodney's eyes went wide as he read the caption underneath the picture, dated 1945. "You… you want me to make a bomb?!" His face went even redder. You can't, you can't, you can't…

Beth crossed her arms, her lips pursed into a very satisfied 12-year-old smirk. "I knew you couldn't. Now back to the potato-"

"I can do it!" Rodney yelled before he even knew the words were going to come out. "I can do it."

"Rodney," April said calmly.

"No, you just wait," he replied, glaring at Beth Allen with years of pent up anger over hearing nothing but you can't, you can't, you can't. "I can and I will and I'm going to win the science fair!" He grabbed his book and stormed out of the classroom, not quite sure what he'd gotten himself into.

Rodney groaned and hoisted his bag up farther on his shoulder as he fumbled to open the door to the house. He'd stopped by the library on the way home to pick up every book he could find on the history and production of the atomic bomb. Thirty-seven, by his last count. He thought his back was going to break or that he'd tumble head first into traffic as his body kept threatening to lose balance on his walk home.

"Rodney McKay!" his mother yelled from the kitchen as he pushed the door open. "Where on earth have you been? It's almost dinner time."

"It was at the library," he said, finally letting his bag drop to the ground with a heavy thud. "I needed books for the science fair. I'm gonna make a-"

"I don't care what your excuse is," his mother grumbled. "I expect you to be on time from now on. I don't want to waste my time worrying about you." Rodney nodded, his eyes fixed on his bag on the ground. "Now what were you saying?" she continued. "Something about school?"

Rodney nodded, reaching down to pull a book out of his bag. "Yeah, there's this annual science fair at school, and I think I have a good chance because I'm going to make something awesome because-"

"I'm going to play Chopin for my audition!" Jeannie exclaimed as she bounded into the room. She handed to the sheet music to her mother with a huge grin. Rodney held his text book tightly as his mother's attention flew happily and gratefully to Jeannie. They were pouring over every note of the music and Rodney just stood there, waiting for his turn. He finally had a project, of course his mother would be proud of him. "I said I was going to-" he tried to interject.

His mother turned back to him in annoyance. "What are you still doing there? Take that bag to your room and get washed for dinner."

He nodded slowly, hoisted his bag over his shoulder once again and left the kitchen.

It was finished. It had taken three months, forty books, three screwdrivers, one blueprint illegally 'borrowed' from the library, and a role of duct tape that he didn't end up needing… but it was finished. Rodney had basically sequestered himself in his room for the last month of it making sure that everything was exactly as the books described. The construction, the wiring, the supplementary battery painstakingly attached to the inside wall… in Rodney's eyes it was beautiful. Everything just clicked while he was building it; it all seemed so natural, so easy. And he was pretty sure that it would work, too, but he couldn't test that theory. One couldn't really just walk into a store in downtown Toronto and ask for "just a bit of uranium, for a science fair, promise".

He adjusted the poster reading "Kitchen Kaboom!: A Grade Six Guide to Building a Fully Functional Atomic Warhead at Home". Beth Allen would freak when she saw it, he chuckled. She'll see that he could do it. She'd be wrong. Really wrong.

"Mr. McKay."

Rodney looked behind him and blushed slightly at Mrs. Mason, the grade eight science teacher, and head fair judge, standing in front of his display. "Mrs. Mason," he said brightly, stepping back from the sign and offering her a copy of his design plans. "Would you like to see these?" he asked.

She shook her head and made a note on her clipboard. "Mr. McKay," she tsked, "what is one of the most important rules of the science fair?"

Rodney paused, looking back at his project and then back to Mrs. Mason. "Um, I don't understand…"

"You've broken a very important rule," she explained slowly. "Do you know what you did wrong?"

"Obviously not or else I wouldn't have done it wrong," he snapped. "What, did I not sign my name on something or is my poster crooked?"

Mrs. Mason shook her head. "Rodney, the first rule is that everything has to be made by the students." Rodney nodded, not quite following. "Your parents obviously helped you build this… and it isn't honest of you to say that this is a real bomb. That's two lies, Rodney. I'm going to have to disqualify you."

"What?!" Rodney shrieked. "You can't do that! They didn't help me! They didn't even know I was in the science fair!" he tried.

Mrs. Mason shook her head again. "Such dishonesty is not an admirably quality, Mr. McKay. Hopefully next year you will have learned your lesson and will present honest work like Ms. Allen, Ms. Bingham, and Mr. Hutchins around the corner."

That was the final straw. "That's not fair! I built it! I built the bomb and it would work if I had radioactive material, but since our science classes are lacking uranium, you just have to look at the papers!" he snapped, shoving his plans and photographs at the teacher. "I built it! Me! All me! I did it! I built the bomb!"

"What is going on here?"

Rodney paused, gasping for breath as the principal approached, obviously irritated. "Mr. Rollings, Mrs. Mason doesn't believe me that I did my project all by myself and sir, she wants to disqualify me and that's just not fair!" he rolled off, still gasping for breath and trying to calm down. They couldn't disqualify him. Not after all of the work he'd put into his project. And he was NOT going to be compared as second best to Beth Allen.

"He obviously had parental help, Mr. Rollins," Mrs. Mason said calmly, now taking it upon herself to ignore Rodney and his pained expressions. "Look at it. It's too good. It's too well made."

"I'm just smart!" Rodney tried again. "Why don't you believe me?"

Mr. Rollins cocked an eyebrow at Rodney, his 'bomb', and then back to Mrs. Mason. "Parental help? You've obviously never met the McKays," he mumbled with a slight smirk.

"Dad can't even fix a toaster, how could he build a bomb?" Rodney interjected again.

"You did not build a bomb, Rodney," Mrs. Mason chastised. "You built a pretty model. At least your parents did."

"It would work if I had all the parts!"

"That's enough," Mr. Rollins said. "Rodney," he said, nodding to the boy, "I believe you when you say you made it yourself. But it's not up to me, it's up to Mrs. Mason because she is the lead judge for the fair." He looked at Mrs. Mason. "Your decision?"

"You have more faith in the boy then I do," she answered. "But I'll allow it since he is so insistent," she grumbled.

Mrs. Mason made a quick checkmark on her clipboard before heading to the front of the room and tapping her hands on the microphone. "Hello… everyone? Can you hear me? I'd like to welcome all of our family and friends to the 1981 Annual Science Fair. It's time to announce the winners. In third place, Ashley Cohen and Anna Jacobs and their project 'Tinfoil Greenhouse'. In second place, Mark Andrews, Nathan Black and Nathan Vincent and their project 'Volcanic Eruptions.'

Rodney crossed his fingers. No way anyone could have beaten him this time.

"And in first place, with their project 'Potato Power'…"

This was all a cruel joke.

"Elizabeth Allen, April Bingham, and Martin Hutchins!"

Rodney felt like kicking something. How could a stupid potato beat a nuclear warhead?! Albeit not a working one, but still. He grabbed his plans and his bomb and started to storm out of the room.

"I really liked your project," April called out as Rodney was heading towards the door. She smiled and offered him her ribbon. "It should've won."

Rodney blushed slightly and smiled. "Yeah, it should've," he mumbled. "I gotta get home."

Mrs. McKay swore loudly as the doorbell rang for the third time during her practice. She had ignored the first two rings, hoping that whoever it was would give up and go away. Obviously that wasn't the case. She threw open the door and glared at the three men standing there. "What could you possibly want?"

The men retrieved badges from their coat pockets and flashed them to the woman, now standing a bit agape. "US Central Intelligence Agency, ma'am," the one on the right said. "We need to speak to Rodney McKay."

"You… what…" she mumbled.

"We need to speak to your son," he replied. "Now."

"And what do you want with Rodney?" she asked, crossing her arms and glaring at the three men. "He hasn't done anything or else the police would be here. And he doesn't do anything, so what could you possibly think he's done?"

"We have reason to believe he is an active member of a subversive communist youth organization we've been tracking across Ontario for the past five years," the agent answered.

It took her a full thirty seconds before everything fell into place in her mind. "What the hell… RODNEY INGRAM MCKAY, YOU GET DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT!" she screamed up the stairs.

Rodney came running, catching himself at the sight of three men standing in the doorway looking rather like his mother did when she was angry with him. "What?"

"What? All you can say is what?" his mother continued yelling. "CIA, Rodney! What the hell did you do! Did you call in some stupid prank! I swear Rodney, if you did something so stupid…"

"He built an atomic bomb," a second agent supplied.

Jeannie looked up from the piano in the corner and gasped. "Rodney built a bomb?"

Rodney watched as his mother went from red to white. "A… bomb…" she said slowly, turning to look at the agent's reaffirming nod and back to Rodney. "You built an atomic bomb? Why the hell are you building atomic bombs?"

"For the science fair," Rodney answered simply. He smiled at the agents. "This means it would've worked, right? You wouldn't be here if it didn't work, right?"

"A bomb…" Mrs. McKay mumbled.

The third agent nodded. "We need to have a little discussion with your son, Mrs. McKay."

"Yes!" Rodney exclaimed. "I was right!'

Mrs. McKay nodded slowly. "Go with the nice men, Rodney…"

Rodney jumped happily off the stairs and grabbed his coat. "So, if it would've worked, can you go tell Mrs. Mason that so I can get that stupid ribbon? It's not her fault she's not smart like we are to be able to tell a workable atomic bomb from a kiddie toy, but we should go set her straight, just to make sure…"


End file.
